Sunday, March 27, 2005

Old school: sitting under a planetarium dome gazing at a simulated Sagittarius.

New school: watching smiling, singing, animated atoms zip around the dome as they journey through a falling snowflake and a stick of chewing gum.

A children's museum near Albany is debuting something new on its big-domed screen they call a "Molecularium" show. The 20-minute digital animation piece reinterprets the traditional planetarium experience for kids as likely to stick their nose in a Game Boy as a book. The subject isn't outer space this time, but atomic space. The movie tells the story of an oxygen atom, Oxy, and her nano pals exploring protons and electrons _ a sort of science meets Shrek story for the early grades. More here